A lot of room for improvement on offense and linebacking play… but Eagles win, 24-23, over Steelers…

I’m just going off what our “Livefyre reporters” told me, as I did not see the game… A huge thunderstorm knocked out my power, my cable TV and my internet in the land of Conowingo for the duration of the game… Normally I would get angry at such a development… But the maturity of aging as a survivor of the ’70’s has taught me patience— after all, Watergate eventually played itself out, right?

Alex Henery’s 51-yard field goal with 12 seconds remaining lifted the Eagles to a dramatic victory, capping a see-saw contest that was decided by deep reserves on each team.

This was long after QB#1 Mike Vick busted up his throwing hand after being pressured and banging it on top of his own center’s Jason Kelce’s helmet in quarter number two…

Vick injured the thumb on his throwing hand during the second quarter, and X-rays performed at halftime were negative. Fans hearing that breathed a collective sigh of relief, especially after having witnessed backup Mike Kafka throw an interception that was returned 53 yards by Pittsburgh’s Al Woods to set up a field goal that made it 13-0.

Nick Foles, who entered in the third quarter with the Eagles still trailing by 13, did not depart until delivering them a one-point lead, thanks to a pair of long touchdown passes. On his first TD pass, he bought time with a scramble to his right and found rookie Damaris Johnson wide open deep behind three obviously confused Steelers defenders. Johnson’s catch and run for a 70-yard touchdown brought a crowd that previously hadn’t had much to cheer for to life.

Foles followed that up on his next series by hitting Mardy Gilyard with a 44-yard touchdown pass. Gilyard originally was ruled out of bounds at the 1, but a replay challenge made it a score that tied the game, and Henery’s extra point gave them a brief lead. Foles finished with six completions on 10 attempts for 144 yards and a passer rating of 143.8.

Even though the Eagles’ starters were thoroughly outperformed, the night was not a total loss. A good many individuals, many of them rookies and first-year players in this system, enjoyed some big moments. In fact, rookie running back Bryce Brown was the real star of the interception return by Al Woods, catching him from behind and tripping him up at the 4-yard line to save a touchdown. Brown also alertly tried to knock the ball loose.

Then defensive tackle Derek Landri turned into a one-man wrecking crew, stuffing Baron Batch for a 1-yard loss on first down and dropping Chris Rainey for a 9-yard loss on third-and-goal. Nice showing there by Landri…

The Eagles’ rookie punt- and kickoff-return candidates gave some eye-opening performances as well. Cornerback Brandon Boykin fielded a kickoff 8 yards deep in the end zone and still turned the first touch of his career into a 46-yard return. Later, Damaris Johnson fearlessly ran up and snagged a shanked punt off the ground a split-second before nearly getting decapitated by Myron Rolle. Johnson also finished with a team-high four catches for 85 yards.

Even veteran quarterback Trent Edwards, who has struggled for most of training camp, came through with two huge throws during a fourth-quarter touchdown drive that put the Eagles back into the lead, 21-20. Edwards eluded an unblocked blitzer with a back-foot completion to rookie Emil Igwenagu for 8 yards on third-and-10, then found rookie Jamel Hamler in the right flat on fourth down. Hamler then made two tacklers miss on a sensational run after the catch to a find the end zone on a play that covered 16 yards. Finally, Edwards expertly ran a two-minute drill, which included a fourth-down conversion, to set Henery up for the winning field goal.

The mixed results of this contest left the Eagles with appropriately mixed feelings.

“Honestly, I was kind of frustrated,” said wide receiver DeSean Jackson, who was limited to one catch for 5 yards. “The first quarter went by kind of fast, so it was kind of unfortunate. The offense came in with five minutes left and then we came in with a three-and-out.” The odd first quarter, in which the Steelers ran nearly 10 minutes off the clock with a game-opening drive that netted a field goal, likely is what drove Eagles coach Andy reid to alter his original plan of inserting the second team at the start of the second quarter.

“We were just anxious, man,” Jackson said. “We wanted to get back out there and get it going.”

Running back LeSean McCoy echoed Jackson’s frustration. “We looked forward to making plays and we weren’t making them today,” he said. “But that’s what the preseason’s for. It’s for kind of going through the motions of it, getting it right, the timing of everything. We’ll be fine, though. Give it a couple of games and we’ll be fine.”

Before the game, a moment of silence was held to honor the memory of Reid’s eldest son, Garrett Reid, who was found dead Sunday morning at training camp. Andy Reid returned to work on Wednesday, a day after Garrett’s funeral.

“The whole week, we’ve been battling through everything, the situation that just happened [with Garrett’s death],” McCoy said. “We’re just trying to weather that and then come out on the field and play ball. It’s been tough. It’s been a long week. I think once the team settles down a little bit … we’ll be fine.”

I’ll wait until I see the actual game tape to make a judgement about the current progress and prospects of this team… But based on the comments of our Livefyre commentator crew, and I’m going to echo T-Boner here, I am a little concerned about the first team offense…especially Vick’s learning curve…as well as the linebacker and cornerback coverage…and I will leave it at that for now.

I’m not real happy with the reports of sloppy tackling, either… but there is still time enough to correct that…and I’ll get to see the evidence for myself on Friday night on NFLN… barring another East Coast thunderstorm.